Chomsky: Bush kidnapped & tortured, Obama murders

Noam Chomsky has slammed US drone strikes and said while the Bush administration kidnapped and tortured, present-day White House resorts to murder.

“If Bush, the Bush administration, didn’t like somebody, they’d kidnap them and send them to torture chambers,” the renowned American scholar told Democracy Now on Monday.

“If the Obama administration decides they don’t like somebody, they murder them, so you don’t have to have torture chambers all over,” he said.

Chomsky also criticized Obama team for the extrajudicial murder of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric, in Yemen in a drone strike.

“He (Awlaki) was killed. The guy next to him was killed. Shortly after, his son was killed. Now, there was a little talk about the fact that he was an American citizen: you shouldn’t just murder American citizens.” Chomsky commented.

“But, you know, the New York Times headline, for example, when he was killed, said something like ‘West celebrates death of radical cleric,” he continued.

“First of all, it wasn’t death, it was murder. And the West celebrates the murder of a suspect. He’s a suspect, after all. There was something done almost 800 years ago called the Magna Carta, which is the foundation of Anglo-American law, that says that no one shall be subjected to a violation of rights without due process of law and a fair and speedy trial. It doesn’t say, if you think somebody’s a suspect, you should kill them,” Chomsky stressed.

The United States has recently approved a policy that allows drone strikes in Yemen even when the identity of targets is not known. The US also launches drone attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.

US military officials claim the airstrikes target militants affiliated to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But locals say civilians are the main victims.